Re: Copyright format “License” field: grant of license, license text?
On Thursday 21 May 2015 12:49:23 Simon Josefsson wrote:
> I believe the license grant is just as important as the license text.
> The license text itself does not mean anything related to a package
> unless there is a grant relating the project source code to a particular
> license. This text can look the same, but for GPL it isn't: the license
> grant typically refer to a particular GPL version but also includes text
> such as "or (at your option) any later version". That grant text is
> critical to determining the actual license of a package. Code under
> GPLv2 and GPLv2+ have different properties.
Currently, the license short name tries also to convey how the license is
granted:
* GPL or later grant are codified with something GPL-2+
* alternate choice are codified with "or". e.g. GPL or Artistic
* some exception are explicitly allowed (like openssl exception)
Using these agreed upon short names enable us to write tools to check license
compatibility when aggregating softwares.
If the license keywords are badly chosen (e.g.using GPL2 with a grant text
allowing "GPL2 or later"), the copyright file will indeed be correct, but
unusable by automated tools. Which would defeat the purpose of DEP-5 spec.
If a license grant deviates from the most used grants, you may create a new
license short name, e.g:
File: Foo/*
License: bsd-like
License: bsd-like
License under BSD and you must do whatever also.
In this case, assessing the compatibility of this license with others cannot
be automated. Hopefully, this will not be too common.
> I prefer to clarify that 'License:' is intended to hold the license
> grant text together with the license text itself (or a pointer for the
> common license texts).
I don't mind provided you choose the right license short name.
Hope this helps
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